eq

[johnkthedj]

Thanks everybody for your input.

Steve: you have really helped me; thank you. I will investigate your last post.

Koz: ok. I will save them to wav; I changed the setting as you suggested. Thanks.

Shakey: I already thought of that and actually have two copies of everything. One "raw" copy which is the ripped one; then i copied everything onto another external hard drive. (I have two 3 terabyte external hard drives with identical music on them) I am using the copied version to do all the editing. If there is a mistake, i can copy the original file and try again. I will look at Traktor. I am currently looking at Virtual DJ.

[Robert J. H.]

There's another scenario thinkable:
A 2 or 3 band split replay gain could be added to a chain.
The replay gain plug-in would be such modified that you can set three 2 or target values for low (mid) and high frequency range.
This plug-in would do the eq-ing and the normalization (following the loudness curve) in one step.
It is a really easy implementation. The finding of the right parameters is up to you though.

[steve]

If you play the music on a software player that support VST plug-ins, then there are muli-band compressors available as VST plug-ins.
KVR is a good place to look for what VSTs are available: http://www.kvraudio.com/q.php

[Shaky]

Shakey: I already thought of that and actually have two copies of everything.

Well that's obviously a good thing, but if you have anywhere near 3Tb of MP3 files that is a astronomical number and you are never going to have time to ensure quality control. Instead the first hint of distorted or heavily clipped sound is going to come blasting out of your PA system

If you really need that much music for your sets - ie take lots of fairly obscure requests - I would be especially cautious of taking the route you are going; as I said with Traktor + a hardware controller you can adjust EQs, levels, and set Cue points in your tracks to pinpoint sections, breaks, etc., all in a non destructive manner that gives you what you want with a minimum of fuss

And if you don't take requests I would drastically trim my DJs collection, to only include records you know really well. Back in the day I used to take a pair of bags each containing maybe 75 x 12" records. Obviously without any physical weight constraint, it is easy to throw thousands of tracks onto a harddisk, but I am a firm believer that as a DJ it pays to know the tunes you are plying very, very well, regardless of whether that is on an analogue or digital system.

Anyway, no offense intended towards anybody's approach or advice; I merely wanted to give you my perspective. Good luck!

[johnkthedj]

shakey.....you hit on the exact reasoning I have for wanting to do these things: requests. I do DJ songs I know, and I have most of them what I call "mastered" (manually adjusted the volume and edited the intro/outro). It is all the other stuff that is not mastered - "potential requests". I want to quickly get these songs mastered just in case I have to play one of them I can be reasonably assured they will be ready. (I listen to them in my headset prior to playing them to get the "feel", and the que's) I don't want to do these songs track by track - there are thousands of them (they are in folders by artist). I do want to do them by batch or bulk. A lot of these songs I may never even listen to for myself, but I want them to be ready in case I need to play one.

One question I had that has not been answered is: how do you load multiple tracks into Audacity to apply the chain to them? Every time I try to do it, they all open in separate windows. How do I load them into the program together and then apply the chain or whatever effect I want? (and how many can I do at once?)

[Robert J. H.]

The import dialog (not open dialog) let's you load as much songs as you like at once into one project.
But chains can also be applied to files that are not loaded (see the Apply Chain dialog).

[johnkthedj]

ok. I guess i am just really dumb...I CANNOT FIGURE THIS PROGRAM OUT!!!!!! I have tried to load multiple files and apply effects, and save or export it. I cannot get it to work. Can someone please give me a step by step instruction on how to load several songs into this program, apply affects (normalize) and then save each song? I am about to give up.

[Gale Andrews]

ok. I guess i am just really dumb...I CANNOT FIGURE THIS PROGRAM OUT!!!!!!

Please do not shout in capital letters and exclamation marks.

I have tried to load multiple files and apply effects, and save or export it. I cannot get it to work.

As Robert already said, you need to use File > Import > Audio... to import multiple files into the same Audacity window.

Please see http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/im ... audio#ways .

Can someone please give me a step by step instruction on how to load several songs into this program

See above.

apply affects (normalize)

After importing the files, press the yellow Stop button. Then Effect > Normalize. See here for how to use it http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/normalize.html .

then save each song?

To save an audio file you need to use File > Export. See this page http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fi ... ialog.html .


Gale